"Timidity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the wheelbarrow piled high with Flora's bed, bundles of clothing, blankets, sheets, and comforters, while I brought up the rear, dragging Flora's wagon, in which she was seated. My poor sister was quite cheerful, and did not seem to be disturbed by any timidity. ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... Prothero knew the girl's turn of mind too well to be astonished at the amount of missionary and geographical knowledge that she possessed. Gladys was naturally very timid and modest, but when subjects of interest were introduced she forgot her timidity in ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... them," I continued. "I would hang back, raging at his assurance or my own timidity; but I lost my next chance in the same way. In Margaret's presence something came over me, a kind of dryness in the throat, that made me dumb. I have known divinity students stricken in the same way, just as they were giving out their first text. It is no aid in ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... trenchant, but its weakness is due, I think, more to timidity of statement than to lack of perception. Paley does see that a character may be "well-drawn" without necessarily being "pleasing"; and even that he may be eminently pleasing as a part of the play while very displeasing in himself. He sees that Euripides may have had his own reasons for not making ...
— Alcestis • Euripides
... rubbing it languidly with his handkerchief. His hat had dropped off, and he did not replace it; he did not look at the girl, but let his eyes rest on the thread of falling water that gleamed from the spring. Miss Frances, regarding him with some timidity, thought: How much younger he looks without his hat! He had that sensitive fairness which in itself gives a look of youth and purity; the sternness of his face lay in the curves which showed under his mustache, and ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... about her once more and draws her closer to him. At first she resists a little, then she yields and gazes, with frank blessedness, into the joyous face of LOTH which bends above her. Involuntarily, in the awkwardness of her very timidity, she kisses his mouth. Both grow red; then LOTH returns her kiss. His caress is long and heartfelt. A giving and taking of kisses—silent and eloquent at once—is, for a time, all that passes between them. LOTH is the ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... century something of the fullness that characterized the Elizabethans: but somehow or other our dramatists hesitate to cross that threshold. It cannot be that their powers are lacking: it can only be some timidity or self-torture which it is the business of the ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... mirth. The storm increased; lamps gleamed and flitted across the road; many of the horses plunged with their heavy loads, and swept along the line in resistless confusion; for nothing can be less characteristic of timidity than ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 330, September 6, 1828 • Various
... they are gazing about them with the timidity and loneliness of strangers in a strange land, the scoundrels will accost them in their own language. Glad to hear the mother-tongue once more, the emigrant readily enters into conversation with the fellow, and reveals to him his destination, his plans, and the amount of ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... the preceding night, he felt as if he experienced a personal interest in her fate—as if their destinies were to be united—as if his growing spirit could enfold hers, and mingle with it forever. The love he felt for her pervaded and softened his whole being with such a feeling of tenderness, timidity, and ecstasy, that his voice, always manly and firm, now became tremulous in its tones; such, in truth, as is always occasioned by a full and overflowing heart when it trembles at the very opportunity of pouring forth the first avowal of ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... superiorities over one another. While one saves its life by higher speed, another does the like by clearer vision, another by keener scent, another by quicker hearing, another by greater strength, another by unusual power of enduring cold or hunger, another by special sagacity, another by special timidity, another by special courage; and others by other bodily and mental attributes. Now it is unquestionably true that, other things equal, each of these attributes, giving its possessor an extra chance of life, is likely to be transmitted to posterity. But there seems no reason to suppose ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... my sister was getting along. Each time, I found her quiet, and curiously submissive. Indeed, on the last occasion, she even ventured to address me, on her own account, with regard to some household matter that needed attention. Though this was done with an almost extraordinary timidity, I hailed it with happiness, as being the first word, voluntarily spoken, since the critical moment, when I had caught her unbarring the back door, to go out among those waiting brutes. I wondered whether she was aware of her attempt, and how near a thing it had been; ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... met with Heine. He had married since I was last here. I found him in indifferent health; but full of energy, and so friendly and so natural in his behavior towards me, that I felt no timidity in exhibiting myself to him as I was. One day he had been relating to his wife my story of the Constant Tin Soldier, and, whilst he said that I was the author of this story, he introduced me to her. She was a lively, pretty young lady. A troop of children, who, as Heine ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... visibly. They would have been incapable of deceit to serve any purpose of their own; they were too timid to have initiated any actions not in strict accordance with household laws; but the same gentle timidity which made them subservient to the rules of their world, made them also abject worshippers at the shrine of Judith's beauty and ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... remorse for having avenged his father on his mother. Was he a Catholic Hamlet, or merely the victim of incurable disease? But the undying worm which gnawed at the king's vitals was in Ernest's case simply distrust of himself,—the timidity of a man to whom no woman had ever said, "Ah, how I love thee!" and, above all, the spirit of self-devotion without an object. After hearing the knell of the monarchy in the fall of his patron's ministry, the poor fellow had next fallen upon a rock covered with exquisite ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... For a long time the guests huddled close to the doorway; the lower end of the floor was crowded! the upper end deserted; but by degrees the lines of white muslin and pink and blue sateen extended, dotted with the darker figures of men in black suits. The conversation grew louder as the timidity of the early moments wore off. Groups at a distance called back and forth; conversations were carried on at top voice. Once, even a whole party hurried across the floor from one side of ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... have gone off like the wind. But as they saw the stranger turn a little away from them, lower its head, and apparently make a dart at some great beetle or locust amongst the herbage, and then hunt out another and another, their timidity passed away, they troubled themselves no more about the new comer, and went ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... lost its central tower, which fell in 1107, we can understand the reasons which induced the original architect to distrust a spire, and to adopt a lantern in its place. If, however, timidity delayed it at first, when it was undertaken, its builder left it not only the most lofty in England then and since, but in actual effect the most lofty in the world. This is claimed in spite of its 404 feet being exceeded by ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... the fact that he was accredited with having slain two T-Bar-T cowboys. A strange sympathy grew between this old Mexican and the lean, bright-eyed young boy. Perhaps Pete's swarthy coloring and black eyes had something to do with it. Possibly Pete's assurance, as contrasted with the bashfulness and timidity of the old Mexican's nephew, had something to do with Montoya's immediate friendliness. In any event, the visit ended with an invitation to Pete to become a permanent member of the sheep-camp, Montoya explaining that his nephew wanted to ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... coming to a crisis, paused. Miss Wilkeson interpreted his silence as another attack of timidity. Time was valuable to her, and this kind of conversation might be kept up all night, and amount to nothing. She resolved upon her ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... digression may perhaps, in the reader's eyes, excuse the interest Admiral Bluewater took in our heroine. With the indulgence of years and station, and the tact of a man of the world, he succeeded in drawing Mildred out, without alarming her timidity; and he was surprised at discovering the delicacy of her sentiments, and the accuracy of her knowledge. He was too conversant with society, and had too much good taste, to make any deliberate parade ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... in his salon had an air of timidity and did not appear at home. He came and went from group to group more like an embarrassed stranger than the master of the house. However, his remarks are ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... record his precocious youth, his marvelous achievements in school or college, his wanderings amid lonely mountains or more lonely city streets, his drug habits with their gorgeous dreams and terrible depressions, his timidity, his courtesy, his soul-solitude, his uncanny genius,—all that is impossible in a brief summary. Let it suffice, then, to record: that he resembled his friend Coleridge, both in his character and in his vast learning; that he ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... visionary voice. It brought a smile to the grave face of M. le Cure and tempted me well nigh to laughter, so strangely did this sensation of the actual, break and disperse the visionary atmosphere. We went in without any timidity, with a conscious relaxation of the great strain upon us. In a little nook, curtained off from the great ward, lay a sick man upon his bed. 'Is it M. le Maire?' he said; 'a la bonne heure! I have a complaint to ...
— A Beleaguered City • Mrs. Oliphant
... But I feel as if I knew more than she had told me. What a queer thought it is, that as she is now looking at me out of this picture, so she must have been looking at you once. It seems as if there was a certain timidity in that look. Something like fear almost.... In such a way you look at people out of another world, for which you long, and of which you ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... of timidity; and, curtseying to the "Senor Francisco," as she styles Hamersley, takes seat upon the log from which he has arisen; Walt laying hold of her hand and gallantly conducting her ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... were entirely unknown in the hard life she had led at home, and which by their very novelty, as well as because they harmonized with her own nature and dreams, were doubly beautiful and fascinating. She enjoyed this life to the full, while her timidity kept her only a spectator; and she ornamented it with a fresher grace, suggestive of the woods and fields, when she ventured to engage in the airy game. It was a sphere for her capacities and talents. She shone in it, and the consciousness of a true position ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... women of her generation, that her son should be so undisguisedly a coward. Whatever good qualities Lester Slaggby may have possessed, and he was in some respects charming, courage could certainly never be imputed to him. As a child he had suffered from childish timidity, as a boy from unboyish funk, and as a youth he had exchanged unreasoning fears for others which were more formidable from the fact of having a carefully thought-out basis. He was frankly afraid of animals, nervous with firearms, and never crossed the Channel without mentally comparing ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... the bravest man is afraid of ridicule. Oh, yes, we've heard a great deal all our lives about the timidity and the sensitiveness of women. And it's true—we are sensitive. But I tell you, ridicule crumples a man up. It steels a woman. We've come to know the value of ridicule. We've educated ourselves so that we ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... shelled crab, when he is on this duty, advances boldly to meet the foe, and will with difficulty quit the field; yet at other times he shews great timidity, and has a wonderful speed in attempting his escape; and, if often interrupted, will pretend death like the spider, and watch an opportunity to sink himself into the sand, keeping only his eyes ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... Timidity of character, probably owing to early education, had a great influence on my daily life; for I did not assume my place in society in my younger days; and in argument I was instantly silenced, although ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... constitutional timidity seemed to be filled to the brim by the loudness of Allan's voice and the bluntness of Allan's request. He ran over in the same feeble flow of words with which he had deluged Midwinter on the occasion when ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... whooping out at him!" was the way Davy put it; at which the eyes of Bumpus grew rounder and rounder, and he began to quietly edge away from under the tree, an inch at a time; for he hoped none of his chums would notice his timidity, because Bumpus was proud of having done certain things in the line of bagging big game, on the occasion of their trip to ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... The strategic timidity of Buller and his curious habit of allowing himself to be influenced by psychological probabilities were at once apparent. The anticipated moral effect of these successes upon the enemy swayed him back to ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... position of jubilant victor, and if Brock had lived, she would probably have followed up her victories by aggressive invasion of the enemy's territory; but all effort was literally paralyzed by the timidity and vacillation of the governor general, Sir George Prevost. Prevost's one idea seems to have been that as soon as the obnoxious embargo laws were revoked by England, the war would stop. When the embargo ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... Joannes Lydus accuses Zeno of timidity, or, rather, of cowardice; he purchased an ignominious peace from the enemies of the empire, whom he dared not meet in battle; and employed his whole time at home in confiscations and executions. Lydus, de Magist. iii. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... a feeling of timidity that I accompanied my mother through several streets to the school taught by Miss Edmonds. My mother accompanied me to relieve me from any awkwardness I might feel in presenting myself for admission. It was a select school for girls. As my education had thus far been entirely conducted ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... were anything but flattering to his employers, or to himself, for that matter, for Skinner was a just man. They were the cussedest, meanest people that he'd ever known. But what was the matter with him, Skinner? Why had n't he made a fight for the raise? It was that old, disgusting timidity that had been a curse to him ever since he was a boy. Others had pushed ahead through sheer cheek, while he held back, inert, afraid to assert himself. By gad, why had n't he made a fight for a raise? They could only sack him, hand him the ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge
... "Timidity is always the excuse of the ignorant; it is to save you from the shame of a defeat that I make you the proposal of not ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... party politicians, which threw upon the Abolitionists the duty of fighting slavery as an undemocratic institution. They took up the cause of the negro in a spirit of religious self-consecration. The prevalence of irresolution and timidity in relation to slavery among the leaders of public opinion incited the Abolitionists to a high degree of courage and exclusive devotion; and unfortunately, also, the conciliating attitude of the official ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... ascended the hill on which the village is built Father Damien showed me on our left the chicken farm. The lepers are justly proud of it, and before many days I had a fine fowl sent me for dinner, which, after a little natural timidity, ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... difficulty with me; perhaps, like some ladies, I showed myself too eager for union at any price; but certainly the first who was picked out to be my bedfellow declined the honour without thanks. He was an old, heavy, slow-spoken man, I think from Yankeeland, looked me all over with great timidity, and then began to excuse himself in broken phrases. He didn't know the young man, he said. The young man might be very honest, but how was he to know that? There was another young man whom he had met already in the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... pursued, with gentle imperturbability. "I think I can make my meaning clear to you—though the parallel isn't precisely an elegant one. The finest thoroughbred dog in the world, if it is beaten viciously and cowed in its youth, will always have a latent taint of nervousness, apprehension, timidity—call it what you like. Well, it seems to me there's something like that in your case, Edith. They hurt you too cruelly, poor girl. I won't say it broke your nerve—but it made a flaw in it. Just as a soldier's old wound aches when there's ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... and longed, but he so concealed his timidity that he had all the seeming of moving boldly among them. Nor was it his wealth alone that attracted them. He was too much a man, and too much an unusual type of man. Young yet, barely thirty-six, eminently handsome, magnificently strong, almost bursting with a splendid virility, his free trail-stride, ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... language appropriate to a vicious young woman such as she longed to be thought, but the words which, she imagined, such a young woman might have uttered with sincerity sounded unreal in her own mouth. And what little she allowed herself to say was said in a strained tone, in which her ingrained timidity paralysed her tendency to freedom and audacity of speech; while she kept on interrupting herself with: "You're sure you aren't cold? You aren't too hot? You don't want to sit and ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... record. Even so there was that which rescued his work from the stigma of failure. He had guarded his people from the tomahawk and the scalping-knife. With prescient eye he had foreseen the imperial greatness of the West. Whatever his shortcomings, they had not been those of meanness or timidity. ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... anywhere," they said. In which expression of their pride in their daughter, the observant reader may see a proof of their own origin from the humbler classes. They would probably have prided themselves on her timidity and helplessness had they ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... of which the issue seemed doubtful. Shalmaneser could not maintain this policy of forbearance without loss of prestige in the eyes of the world: conduct which might seem prudent and cautious in a victorious monarch like Assur-nazir-pal would in him have argued timidity or weakness, and his rivals would soon have provoked a quarrel if they thought him lacking in the courage or the means to attack them. Immediately after his accession, therefore, he assumed the offensive, and decided to measure his strength ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... of our active nature called Belief, Confidence, Conviction, is subject to the same line of remark. This great quality—the opposite of distrust and timidity, the ally of courage, the adjunct of a buoyant temperament—is not fed upon airy nothings. It is, indeed, a true mental quality, an offshoot of our mental nature; yet, although not material, it is based upon certain forces of the physical constitution; it grows when these grow, ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... personal character. It had at first been liberal and just; it became arbitrary and even treacherous. His personal timidity made him at once harsh and vacillating. The heads of the great families, whom he had invited to a banquet, were seized and condemned to death on a charge of conspiracy. But a sudden terror of the possible consequences ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Sullivan Place, before the earthquake in San Francisco,—they were to be found in many parts, always for the one purpose,—to resist interference with the enforcement of brothel slavery upon Chinese women. American men undertook this part of the business, because a certain timidity in the Chinese character when dealing with American women, and a fear of arousing race-prejudice, unfitted the Chinaman for coping with the American women,—Miss Culbertson, the pioneer, now sainted, Miss Lake, Miss Cameron and Miss ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... situation of the parties. Some represented him as winning all hearts by his open temper and the politic profusion with which, though covetous of wealth, he distributed repartimientos and favors among his followers. Others spoke of him as carrying matters with a high hand, while the greatest timidity and distrust prevailed among the citizens of Lima. All agreed that his power rested on too secure a basis to be shaken; and that, if the president should go to Lima, he must either consent to become Pizarro's ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... he, now do I see you are to be trusted with power, from the generous use you make of it!—Not one offensive word or look, from me, shall wound your nicest thoughts; but pray try to subdue this over-scrupulousness, and unseasonable timidity. I persuade myself you ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... conducive to "unity of conduct." By this is not meant that general helplessness in the face of conditions, dangers and injuries because of ignorance of the methods of averting them. This is not humility but weakness. Nor do we mean that timidity and loss of countenance which one suffers before a superior in physical power or wealth. The true humility with which we are here concerned is that which one feels constantly before God, though it shows itself also in such a person's conduct in the presence of others, ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... with me!" she commanded with an unaccustomed note of timidity mingling with the imperious young voice. "I want to talk to you. Those widiculous men have been boring me to distwaction, and I want to hear about Yew Hedge. Take me into the wose garden, and tell ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... Little Henry was commonly thought a dull child. His memory was lamentably deficient, and his utterance was thick and indistinct, so much so that he could scarcely be understood in reading or speaking. This was caused partly by an enlargement of the tonsils of his throat, and partly by timidity. The policy of repression worked badly in his case, and had there not been so much real good at the basis of his character it might have led this gentle, yearning boy far from the useful channel along which his life ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... the reality than his anticipation could have fancied, the poor and friendless stranger felt overwhelmed. A sense of forlornness, of insignificance, and of terror seized upon his faculties. From the stare or the sneers or the jostle of the iron-nerved crowd he shrank with glances of wild timidity, and with a heart as wildly timid as were his looks. For some time he stood or staggered about, unable to collect his thoughts, or to bring to mind what was his business there. But when Shamus became able to refer to the motive of his ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... permission to visit the Holy Land, in 1270, with Louis of France, who also wished to go to Jerusalem and take advantage of the low Jewish clothing market. In 1272 Henry died, during the absence of his son, after fifty-six years of vacillation and timidity. He was the kind of king who would sit up half of the night trying to decide which boot to pull off first, and then, with a deep-drawn sigh, go ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... themselves, without any mention of anybody else. They had awoke to a sense of the danger of the situation and their own indispensable merits. The two children knew their day was over; the nurses had come for them. Who can blame them for their timidity? The Consuls have the ears of the Governments; they are the authors of those despatches of which, in the ripeness of time, Blue-books and White-books are made up; they had dismissed (with some little assistance from yourself) ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not sit down. An unaccountable terror or timidity seemed to have paralyzed her. She looked aside—everywhere but in his face: "I wanted you to tell me how to reach him, how to touch him: I know what manner of man ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... humour in the world, and played lessons and accompanied Strada and all the ladies that sung from seven o' the clock till eleven." In such company Handel could evidently be more agreeable than on the stage at rehearsals, and it is interesting to note that the amateurs had no timidity about singing before Strada, and that Handel was willing to accompany ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... propeller, we were let out of dock at 1 P.M. These repairs were done with a very bad grace by the Spanish officials, who seemed in a great hurry to get rid of us, lest the affair of our being docked should compromise them! This I suppose was due to official timidity, not to any want of good feeling, as the Commandant of the yard expressed to me his regret at not being able to put me in complete repair; personally offering to render me any service in his power. Our engine not being ready for use, the Captain-General sent a small ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... words, not knowing what was required of her, she turned to Alessandro, the chief executioner, and asked what she was to do; he told her to bestride the plank and lie prone upon it; which she did with great trouble and timidity; but as she was unable, on account of the fullness of her bust, to lay her neck upon the block, this had to be raised by placing a billet of wood underneath it; all this time the poor woman, suffering even more from shame than from fear, was kept in ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... love would have given his life happiness and purpose; but it did not dawn for him. Was it because he did not meet the right woman? Was it because he did not come out of himself sufficiently? was he, as it were, too much walled in by his indifference to discover, behind the reserve of maidenly timidity, faint emotions by which his own feelings might have been kindled? Enough, he passed woman by, without seeing in her aught save a toy. By accident, or to be more accurate, through the jealousy of another interest which believed itself threatened, he discovered a cleverly woven intrigue to ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... undreamed-of delight of being invited out to lunch, and forgetting for awhile that there were such tiresome things in the world as sewing-machines and endless ruffling for other people. Although she wore her old brown dress, darned at the elbows, and, with her usual timidity, scarcely ventured a remark at the table unless directly questioned, she was all aglow ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... thoroughly understood by my seemingly innocent and youthful Fowler's Bay native. When I taxed him with his extraordinary conduct, he told me the natives had tried to induce him to go with them to their camp, but his natural timidity had deterred him and saved his life; for they would certainly have killed him if he had gone. After the attack, Tommy said, "I tole you black fellow coming," though we did not recollect that he had done so. The spy who had fastened on to me got away in an opposite direction to that ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... a timidity not his wont, for an air of majesty was at all times natural to Rienzi, and since his power it had naturally taken a graver and austerer aspect, which impressed those who approached him, even the ambassadors ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... this plank does not say much, that in fact it is only a "splinter;" and our "liberal" friends warn us not to rely upon it as a promise of the ballot to woman. What it is, we know full better than others. We recognize its meagerness; we see in it the timidity of politicians; but beyond and through it all, we farther see its promise of the future. We see in it the thin edge of the entering wedge which shall break woman's slavery in pieces and make us at last a nation truly ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... across the room, and while we were walking every eye was upon us, and the least hesitancy or timidity would have betrayed and brought the whole pack upon us before we were ready to receive them. Therefore, without swaggering, or pretending to be very independent, we reached our allotted table, and called for three bottles ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... because circumstances put Music Mountain between him and his mistress. And Nan, after she had once surrendered, was nothing behind in the chances she unhesitatingly took to arrange her meetings with de Spain. He found in her, once her girlish timidity was overcome and a woman's confidence had replaced it, a disregard of consequences, so far as their own plans were concerned, that ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... discontented and unhappy though he could not have told exactly why. But one thing was evident—he was not anticipating Loren's home-coming with much pleasure. He felt, in fact, a certain reluctance, or rather timidity, about meeting this younger brother of his who knew so much and talked so much, and seemed to enjoy himself so thoroughly. He anticipated keenly the difference that two years must have brought between them, and dreaded ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... fine of a double bumper of bishop." "Bravo!" said Horace: "then I plead guilty, and swallow the imposition." "I'll thank you for a cut out of the back of that lion,"{34} tittered a man opposite. With all the natural timidity of the hare whom he thus particularised, I was proceeding to help him, when Echo inquired if he should send me the breast of a swiss {35} and the facetious Eglantine, to increase my confusion, requested to be allowed to cut me a slice off the wing ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... of change in her manner toward him was inevitable; less sure than formerly of his entire approval and ardent affection, a certain timidity and hesitation crept into her manner of approaching him, even when they were quite alone together; she grew sad, silent, and reserved: and he, thinking her sullen and jealous without reason, ceased to lavish endearments upon her, and, more than ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... of what was sensible and sound in fighting-risks I do not know. General Trenchard, their supreme chief, believed in an aggressive policy at all costs, and was a Napoleon in this war of the skies, intolerant of timidity, not squeamish of heavy losses if the balance were tipped against the enemy. Some young flying-men complained to me bitterly that they were expected to fly or die over the German lines, whatever the weather or whatever the ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... were a shade too long. And then I had a manner. Some women are to be approached in one way and some in another, just as a siege is an affair of fascines and gabions in hard weather and of trenches in soft. But the man who can mix daring with timidity, who can be outrageous with an air of humility, and presumptuous with a tone of deference, that is the man whom mothers have to fear. For myself, I felt that I was the guardian of this lonely lady, and ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was liberally endowed, she was reluctant to explore those ruins or wander among the graves where he delighted to resort. At first he was inclined to ascribe her reluctance to weak and sentimental timidity, but he speedily found reason to adopt an altogether different view. He noticed that whenever he took her to graveyards or to churches in which there were graves, her frail form became greatly agitated, and at times she seemed rooted to the ground; and that there were certain ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... the least equivocal of the men forward or aft. In fact, there was nothing equivocal about him. One was struck at once by his straightforwardness and manliness, which, in turn, were tempered by a modesty which might be mistaken for timidity. But timid he was not. He seemed, rather, to have the courage of his convictions, the certainty of his manhood. It was this that made him protest, at the commencement of our acquaintance, against being called Yonson. And upon this, and him, Louis ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... with a carriage. I noticed particularly, that, although the negroes touched their hats, and inquired how he was (by which I concluded he had been absent for some time), he did not deign to answer their inquiries. From their timidity, it was evident that he was an overbearing man, and the imperial haughtiness manifested in giving them his orders, confirmed this impression. This individual was one of those who condemned the demonstration I have noticed, when the boat ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... to be told. It is cowardly timidity for those of us who know them, to keep them from the Christian public. Heroes and heroines answer to the roll-call of A.M.A. workers. I have met them and mingled with them, the past three years, and I know the sinew and ...
— American Missionary, Vol. XLII., June, 1888., No. 6 • Various
... first attempt at portrait painting. Just as he had finished his maiden task, his mother and sister entered. He tried to conceal what he had done, but his confusion arrested his mother's attention, and she asked him what he had been doing. With reluctance and timidity, he handed her the paper, begging, at the same time, that she would not be offended. Examining the drawing for a short time, she turned to her daughter, and, with a smile, said, "I declare he has made a likeness of Sally." She then gave him a fond kiss, which so encouraged him that ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... parents toward a possible marriage? The idea of marriage roams continually in houses with grown-up girls, and takes every shape and disguise, and employs every subterfuge. A dread of compromising myself took hold of me as well as an extreme timidity before the obstinately correct and reserved attitude of the Misses Louise and Pauline. To choose one of them in preference to the other seemed to me as difficult as choosing between two drops of water; and then the fear of launching myself into an affair ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... settlement was but a step of the same kind as the first, an advance to a new frontier like the old. For long we lacked, it is true, that new breed of frontiersmen born in after years beyond the mountains. Those first frontiersmen had still a touch of the timidity of the Old World in their blood: they lacked the frontier heart. They were "Pilgrims" in very fact,—exiled, not at home. Fine courage they had: and a steadfastness in their bold design which it does a faint-hearted age good to look back upon. There was no thought of drawing back. ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... in war more potent than mere numbers. The moral difficulties of a situation may render the proudest display of physical force of no avail. Uncertainty and apprehension engender timidity and hesitation, and if the commander is ill at ease the movements of his troops become slow and halting. And when several armies, converging on a single point, are separated by distance or by the enemy, when communication is tedious, ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... some of the duties of a Christian before he supposed himself to possess the Christian character. The first school he taught he opened daily with prayer, persevering in the practice as a conscientious duty, in spite of many misgivings and much timidity. And this he did in every school he afterward taught. He kept up the habit of secret prayer, at the same time, asking more earnestly than for anything else, that his weak eyes might be cured, and that he might have the ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... the ship, which, in James's opinion, must have been the work of a masterly combination. And now another theft! The poor fellow has quite lost his nerve, which, as you know, has for years not been that of a young man. His deafness, no doubt, partly accounts for the timidity with which he has been afflicted since the first (and only other) time he was robbed. And now he blames it for what happened ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... went oddly with their whole physique. It was as though creatures built for a normal life of easy give and take with their fellows had fallen upon some unfitting and jarring experience. One striking difference, indeed, there was between them, for amid the brother's timidity and sweetness there lay, clearly to be felt and seen, the consciousness of the priest—nascent and immature, but already ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... heart was mortally wounded, still no feeling of hatred could find its way into it. The sorrow which he felt, the painful knowledge which he had of cruel and perfidious wrongs done to him, the pain of finding out the timidity of character of his friends, and the recollection of the many ungrateful people of whom he was the victim, all and each of these sentiments found their echo in the "Prisoner of Chillon," in the third canto of "Childe Harold," in "Manfred," in the pathetic stanzas ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... sister Sophia strive to hide every perfection they possess;—yet these I have just mention'd, with all others, will on proper occasions, make their appearance through a croud of blushes.—This timidity proceeds partly from nature,—partly from the education they have received under the best of mothers, whose tenderness for them would not suffer her to assign that momentous task to any but herself; fearing, as she has often told me, they would have had a thousand faults ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning
... hand towards it. Five persons tried the experiment before the sixth illustrated the fact that touch was not absolutely necessary to cause the leaves to shrivel up or shrink through seeming fear. Our host even intimated that when the mimosa had become familiar with a congenial person its timidity would vanish, and it could be handled gently by that individual without outraging its sensibility. Of this, however, we saw no positive evidence. If Mr. Darwin had supplemented his chapters on the monkey by a paper relating to the mimosa, he might possibly have ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... living. From this narrative it would seem that in the other world the ghosts are thought to pursue the same occupations which they followed in life. The natives are in great fear of ghosts (buka). Travelling alone with them in the forest at nightfall you may mark their timidity and hear them cry anxiously, "Come, let us be going! The ghost is roaming about." The ghosts of those who have perished in battle do not go to the Village of Ghosts (buka kure); they repair to another place ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... stockings. Once only, when he had ventured to look a little higher, our eyes met; and no thief taken with a hand in a man's pocket could have shown more lively signals of distress. This set me in a muse, whether his timidity arose from too long a disuse of any human company; and whether perhaps, upon a little trial, it might pass off, and my uncle change into an altogether different man. From this I was awakened by his ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... reported by Hernando to his brother, caused the latter much anxiety. As the timidity of the peasantry, however, gradually wore off, some of them mingled with the troops, and among them the curaca or principal person of the village. He had himself visited the royal camp, and he informed the general that Atahuallpa lay at the ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... high spirits of success, but is no more now than it has been for twenty years a party of homogeneous confidence in domestic reform, while on the world outside the British islands it looks with passivity, perhaps timidity, certainly with no ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte
... fear predominates in ev'ry thought, And sways thy breast with absolute dominion, Think on th' insulting scorn, the conscious pangs, The future mis'ries, that wait th' apostate; So shall timidity assist thy reason, And wisdom ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... The strange timidity de la Cour Francaise requires great patience and management; but I think it will at last be brought to act an avowed and decided part. When that happens, Angleterre must submit to whatever terms they please to impose, ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... humble peasants of Upper Austria, were kneeling there in their peasant garb with the emperor in their midst, and surrounded by the glittering uniforms of the archdukes, the princes, the generals, cabinet ministers and ambassadors assembled around the coffin. There was no undue exaltation or timidity on the part of the peasants, no undue condescension or contempt on the part either of emperor or dignitaries for the lowly rank of their fellow mourners. All seemed thoroughly to realize that they were equal in the face of death, and in the ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... timidity," he said quickly. "These are dangerous seas for a man of mark to steer his craft upon. Carthaginians and other barbarians are not citizens of Capua—no refinement—no civilization. Much has happened to disturb me—to unsettle my nerves. Decius Magius has been parading in the ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... not chide thee, Senor, for thy jealous care of this most precious gem," said Isabella, addressing Don Ferdinand, while her eye followed Marie, who, re-assured by the Queen's manner, had conquered her painful timidity, and was receiving and returning with easy grace and natural dignity the greetings and gallantries of her guests: "she is too pure, too precious to meet the common eye, or ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... ship before it was dark. We imagined that these people had heard nothing of us, and could not but remark the different behaviour and dispositions of the inhabitants of the different parts of this coast upon their first approaching the vessel. These kept aloof with a mixture of timidity and wonder: Others had immediately commenced hostilities, by pelting us with stones: The gentleman whom we had found alone, fishing in his boat, seemed to think us entirely unworthy of his notice; and some, almost without invitation, had come ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... them, had feared. The young lady was of a temperament both emotional and dramatic. And her behavior, to a man to whom scenes were abhorrent, proved trying in the extreme. In the end, after the amount of protestation and rather affected timidity which she evidently thought proper, Ivan's offer was accepted; and the expression of her gratitude that followed, caused Ivan to terminate the business somewhat brusquely by calling the lady's attention ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... dangers—when these queer people began to massage each other in turn, to rub and to thump, to slap and knead the limbs and muscles, then, in their intense curiosity, even the children forgot their timidity and crowded round. A pickaninny—the queerest little mite—even ventured to poke a tiny finger into the ribs of one of the three. After that there was a great pow-wow. Mr. Hume, with a man in the palm of each hand, a boy on each shoulder, and a couple hanging from each brawny arm, sent ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... a detailed account of the labors of a small band of enfranchised females for the liberation of their enslaved and suffering sisters, whose weakness and timidity had hitherto prevented their rising and throwing off the yoke of the oppressor, man. So eloquently did she rehearse her tale, so still and patient was her listener, that she felt confident of gaining a new coaedjutor in the ranks of female ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... timidity, L'Isle tried to calm her fears, and taking her hand, endeavored to keep it, while he assured her that every Portuguese peasant was familiar with mules and mountain roads from boyhood. With a little laugh, she, ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... the man who, more than any one else, held in his hand the destiny of the nation. But, when a tall, gaunt person, with wonderful, thoughtful eyes and a homely face, illumined by a melancholy but attractive smile, walked up to him and asked: "Is this George Knight?" all the boy's timidity vanished. As he answered, "Yes, I am George Knight," he felt as if he had ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... produced on the mass of federalists who had not before come over. Those who had before become sensible of their error in the former change, and only wanted a decent excuse for coming back, seized that occasion for doing so. Another body, and a large one it is, who from timidity of constitution had gone with those who wished for a strong executive, were induced by the same timidity to come over to us rather than risk anarchy: so that, according to the evidence we receive from every direction, we may say that the whole of that portion of ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... and that writing are marvellously akin; and such differences as you will see in them are superficial merely. I spoke of Whistler's vanity in life, and I spoke of his timidity and reverence in art. That contradiction is itself merely superficial. Bob Acres was timid, but he was also vain. His swagger was not an empty assumption to cloak his fears; he really did regard himself as a masterful and dare-devil fellow, except when he was actually fighting. Similarly, except ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... belligerency resolutions to reach the attention of the House during the Extra Session of Congress had rekindled the war fever in the country; and the constant chatter about the suffering Cuban and the duty of the United States, the black iniquity of the Speaker and the timidity of the President, were wearying to the more evenly balanced members of the community. "You say that we need a war," said Betty contemptuously one day, "that it will shake us up and do us good. If we had fallen as low as that, no war could lift us, certainly not the act of bullying a small ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... little prisoners, than a reply comes from the thistle tops, far down the field. A moment more and the traps are surrounded with the black and yellow beauties. The fact that one of their own kind is within the curious little house which confronts them seems to send all their timidity to the winds and they fairly fall over one another in their endeavor to see what it all means. Finally one finds the doorway in the roof and drops upon the perch within. Instantly the doors close and a ...
— Birds Illustrated by Colour Photography, Vol II. No. 4, October, 1897 • Various
... niches of the city little groups of buildings which seem to have assembled themselves, by some lonesome impulse, into communities. Primarily, of course, these groupings are ethnological, these cities within a city being originally created largely by the timidity of strangers in a strange land. There are little Italys, and Chinatowns, and diminutive Bohemias, all swung together by the action of this great centripetal force of loneliness. The buildings in these communities, inflexible enough ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... got it, giving it in return when she chose, and that was not always to those who asked most loudly for it. Fearless, outspoken, and quick, Poppy had none of Penelope's dreaminess, or Esther's anxiousness, or Angela's timidity. She was eminently a practical little person, with deep thoughts and plans of her own, and a ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... courage, heroism, valor, prowess, hardihood, mettle, pluck, fearlessness, boldness. Antonyms: cowardice, timidity, recreancy, poltroonery, flinch. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... together for a moment, and March said: "I hope you will think it worth while to take hold with us, Mr. Beaton. Mr. Fulkerson puts it in his own way, of course; but we really want to make a nice thing of the magazine." He had that timidity of the elder in the presence of the younger man which the younger, preoccupied with his own timidity in the presence of the elder, cannot imagine. Besides, March was aware of the gulf that divided him as a literary man from Beaton ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... "solitary disposition," whose life had been joined to savages, and who had for years had "neither servants, clothes nor fare which did not savor more of meanness than of ostentation," and who was of such natural timidity that it took him a week "to make up his mind to go to an audience" with Monseigneur de Conti, is summoned to an interview with the ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... soft relief of the form, in colours each beautiful in itself, and harmonious one with the other on ground whose colour is also beautiful, though unobtrusive. Hardness ruins the work, confusion of form caused by timidity of colour annoys the eye, and makes it restless, and lack of colour is felt as destroying the raison d'etre of it. So you see it taxes the designer heavily enough after all. Nevertheless I still call it the easiest ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... overweening pride of the strong man who has made his way by buffeting obstacles, were all mine; and yet, walking there that morning in the high wind between the rolling broomsedge and the blood-red sumach, I was aware again of the boyish timidity with which I had carried my market basket so many years ago to her kitchen doorstep. She had said of me last night that I was no longer "common." Was that because she had read in my glance that I had kept myself pure for her sake?—that ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... understood very well the timidity of his host. "Then," he said, "as I have no wife to be anxious about me, perhaps I ...
— A Cousin's Conspiracy - A Boy's Struggle for an Inheritance • Horatio Alger
... the greatest timidity that we venture upon the publication of a few aphorisms which may give birth to this new art, as casts have created the science of geology; and we offer them for the meditation of philosophers, of young marrying people and ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... consoler. He did everything he could think of to please them, finding all of them charming, though Jacqueline never ceased to be the one he preferred, a preference which she might easily have inferred from the poor lad's unusual timidity and awkwardness when he was brought into contact with her. But she paid no attention to his devotion, accepting himself and all he did for her as, in some sort, her ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... mainly on his side, and so worked upon his vanity, while inflaming his ardor, that he scarcely knew what he was about. Her coolness and coyness were even made to appear the simple precautions of a modest timidity, and attracted him even more than the little tendernesses into which she was occasionally surprised. He could never be away from her long, day or evening; and in a short time their intimacy was the town talk. She played with him so adroitly that Harry thought she was absorbed in love for him, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... in sudden timidity and said a little hurriedly, "Help me into the saddle. I shall need to ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland
... not help seeing that if artillery could be got to the top of this mountain, Ticonderoga was doomed. They reconnoitred it. Though difficult, they said it might be done. St. Clair's timidity having given them the way to it, the British instantly began moving men and guns round the rear of the fortress, and cutting a road up the mountain-side. The work was pushed forward day and night. It took most of the oxen belonging ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... Jenny was in Washington. She made the journey alone, but without timidity or fear. Her purpose made her self-possessed and courageous. On arriving at the seat of government, Jenny inquired for the Secretary of the Navy. When she arrived at the Department over which he presided, and obtained an interview, she said ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... him. This sharpened his hearing and made him notice how people busied themselves about him, with glances, words and gestures, whenever he came in sight. This made him grow serious quite early, and gave him a certain timidity with people. But he was inwardly sound and strong. Perhaps he had Katharine to thank for this, for in keeping his outward appearance always so neat and dainty, she might have unconsciously brought ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... qualities especially developed by it are just those qualities which have startled Russia, and may yet cause her many a painful surprise. She has discovered alarming force where she imagined childish weakness; she has encountered heroism where she expected to find timidity and helplessness.** ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... afterwards complained; possibly he feared that the wariness of his tactics might lead men to believe that he did not mean to exceed the lukewarm and indecisive action of days scarce yet passed away, which had led Suffren to stigmatize tactics as a mere veil, behind which timidity ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... end of his doubts and self-torturing sophistry. A last glimpse of his imperious curiosity, kept alive by saucy hopes and fears, is seen in his letter to Speed of the 5th of October. He ventures, with a genuine timidity, to ask a question which we may believe has not often been asked by one civilized man of another, with the hope of a candid answer, since marriages were celebrated with ring and book. "I want to ask you a close question— Are you now, in feeling as well as judgment, glad you ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... observed Elizabeth, and his vast experience had enabled him to interpret symptoms to which others had been blind. "She has acted towards you," he said to Peyton, "as she never acted towards another man. She's shown you a meekness, sir, a kind of timidity." And he agreed that, if Peyton should go away without an explanation, it would make her throw aside other expectations, and would, in the end, "cut her to the heart." Valentine hinted at regrettable things ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... in full career close beside the Inca. But the face of Atahuallpa never for an instant lost its marble composure, though several of his soldiers shrank back in manifest terror as the strange creature passed them; and it is said that they paid dearly for their timidity, as Atahuallpa caused them to be put to death for thus showing fear in the presence of the strangers. Wine was now brought, and offered to the Spaniards in golden goblets of extraordinary size, and then they took their leave and rode gloomily back to Caxamalca. ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... know what I have come for this morning, Lucia?" I asked, leaning my elbow on the arm of her chair, and looking into the soft blue eyes that seemed to have a sort of timidity ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... cardinal ever endured such a chase as she led him in the following days. Through fear and timidity she had kept most of her life in the underbrush. The Cardinal was a bird of the open fields and tree-tops. He loved to rock with the wind, and speed arrow-like in great plunges of flight. This darting and twisting ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... birches were pleading with this child-dreamer, and in his mind a conflict swept backward and forward. Paul did not at once see his brother, and the older boy stood over him in silence, watching the mental fight; watching until he knew that it was lost and that timidity had overpowered shame. His own eyes at first held only scorn for such a poltroon attitude, but suddenly there leaped into them a fierce glow of tenderness, which he as quickly masked. At the end of his silent contemplation he brusquely demanded, "Well, Paul, how long is it going to ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... book-lover is his book-plate. There are many good bibliophiles who abide in the trenches, and never proclaim their loyalty by a book-plate. They are with us, but not of us; they lack the courage of their opinions; they collect with timidity or carelessness; they have no need for the morrow. Such a man is liable to great temptations. He is brought face to face with that enemy of his species, the borrower, and dares not speak with him in the gate. If he had a book-plate he would say, "Oh! certainly I will lend you this ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... peculiar sensitiveness to pain. She carried on her evangelical work as long as she possibly could, continuing to converse with her fellow passengers on spiritual matters. It was wonderful that a woman, so reserved and proud as she by nature was, could conquer so completely her natural timidity. In those last months, she scarcely ever got into a railway carriage or into an omnibus, without presently offering tracts to the persons sitting within reach of her, or endeavouring to begin a conversation ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... as a financier, handling a big deal, that the Paramount stock will not appeal to investors or the bonds to banks unless we can launch our project as a clean, perfect combination, every transportation charter locked up. I handle money, and I know all of money's timidity and all of money's courage. You think the Vose directors are able to hold their stockholders in line, ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... gasped. Of all his daughters this deformed one had rendered him the most absolute obedience; of her alone he could say that, apart from her bodily weakness, she had never given him a moment's distress. In a family where high courage was the rule her timidity was a by-word; she would turn pale at the least word of anger. But she was brave now, as a dove ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... not," declared Nellie. "Just another touch of that timidity we fought out when you first came. This is an honor, Sally, and we know whom to choose for it. We know how you stand in the half year's record," and she proceeded to straighten out the maline butterfly on Sally's shoulders—no one could seem to ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... half oblivion of things at hand, made the prettiest work that could be in face and manner. A sweeter shyness than that of the girl who had nothing to hide watched all doors that led to her secret; a fairer reserve than mere timidity kept back what belonged to one man alone. A certain womanly veil over the girlish face but made the beautiful life changes more beautiful still. If anything, she looked younger than she had done ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... when alone with a woman, timidity had touched me to ice, while inwardly I had trembled ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... I had never meant to speak to Mr. Burke again after hearing him in Westminster Hall. I had meant to keep at least that " geographical timidity." ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... timidity and dread of public speaking, Palla had faced idle, half-curious, half sneering crowds just east or west of Broadway; had struggled through with what she had come to say; had gently replied to heckling, blushed under insult, stood trembling by her ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... with timidity; ingenuity, frequently misdirected; ugliness, the result of a false ideal of beauty—these in general characterize the architecture of our immediate past; an architecture "without ancestry or hope of posterity," an architecture devoid of coherence or conviction; willing ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... her hand with a sort of appealing timidity, it appeared to me that she felt herself to be intruding. The expression in her beautiful eyes when she glanced at her husband could only be described as one of adoration; and whilst it was impossible ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... cherry-trees in the yard," replied Ellen, taking refuge from her timidity in the security of commonplace observation, as she had done the night before, giving thereby both a sense ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman |
